US Railway Gets Hacked and Hijacked!

Looks like the US Rail is at risk of being hacked by foreign hackers who apparently took control of the US Northwest rail company's computers and basically played with the railway signals twice in December. Apparently the train service was slowed for a short while and rail schedules were delayed about 15 minutes after the interference. The next day a second event occurred that did not affect schedules, TSA officials added.

The TSA is responsible for protecting all US transportation systems. The report into the train hack seems to be its first major brush with cyber crime. According to Nextgov, Amtrak and the freight railway outfits apparently had not thought much about cyber attacks before these incidents. The report said that when TSA investigators began to suspect the exploit was an intentional act rather than a glitch, they acted under the assumption it could present a broader danger to the U.S. transportation system.

Two IP addresses were found for the attacks source but the report does not say in which country they were located. Alerts listing the three IP addresses went out to several hundred railroad firms and public transportation agencies, as well as to partners in Canada so that they could be blocked.

The TSA said that they were taking extra precautions to secure the rail networks but is this only the start? Will Anonymous note this and launch a counter attack on who ever is responsible for this?